Right Angle began as a column in the now-defunct Sunday magazine in November 1991. The column allowed me the luxury of presenting an alternative to the prevailing left-liberal consensus in India. It has become the implicit signature tune for all my subsequent writings.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

Modi understood Young India better

By Swapan Dasgupta

Under normal circumstances, the declaration of
results at the end of a long and bitterly contested election is followed by an
onrush of platitudes affirming the “maturity of the voters”, the reinforcement
of “democratic values” and the opening of a “new chapter” of parliamentary
politics. It is not that such ritualistic self-praise was completely absent
last Friday morning as the Electronic Voting Machines began revealing the
preferences of India’s many millions of voters. However, the usual quota of
anodyne remarks and self-satisfied we-told-you-so comments were replaced by two
developments that happened in rapid succession. First, by 9.30 am—barely 90
minutes after counting began—it was sufficiently clear that Narendra Modi was
going to be India’s next Prime Minister. The NDA, it was evident, was coasting
to a majority. Secondly, around 11am or thereabouts, another far more dramatic
trend became visible: the BJP was on its way to crossing the magic 272 mark on
its own.

That Indian voters had got over their infatuation
with fractious coalition politics and were ready to repose full faith in one
side should have been greeted with whoops of delight. After all, there is
nothing like an unambiguous verdict to facilitate decision-making and political
accountability. Unfortunately, the quantum of excitement that this development
should have produced was felt more in the outside world than among the
assembled punditry in the TV studios. Where the cameras and bright lights were
positioned, the mood was one of nervous tension. In one channel the mood, it
was reported, was distinctly funereal. Democracy, it somehow seemed, was good
only if the outcome was along predictable lines. On May 16, Narendra Modi
played the role of party pooper. He spoiled what was planned as a long day and
possibly long night of speculation and posturing.

That Modi was, well, a politician cut from a very
different cloth was always known. That he played by his own set of rules that
often appeared incomprehensible or even outlandish was also known. His
relationship with the fourth pillar of democracy had also been awkward: he was
the man who was hated, feared and yet never out of gaze. For years on end,
viewers and readers had grown accustomed to Breaking News scrolls that began
with the mandatory “In a big blow to Modi…” When he won the 2002 election and
came to Delhi, self-righteous reporters boycotted his lunch and boasted about
their walkout for months thereafter. Lofty editors with a sense of social
superiority used to routinely dub him “mass murderer” with the same
condescending sneer that Mani Shankar Aiyar reserved for his infamous
“chaiwala” expression. Yes, Modi was every cub reporter’s punching bag, the man
who was not merely the outsider but even an outlander.

The prospect of such a man becoming the presiding
political deity of Lutyens’ Delhi and living in the same bungalow that once
housed Rajiv Gandhi filled the beautiful people with the same disgust that
Indira Gandhi felt on realising that the palatial residence of her iconic father
would now be occupied by Lal Bahadur Shastri. In 1964, the Nehru-Gandhi family
ensured that Teen Murti House was unilaterally declared a monument to the late
Jawaharlal. In the more egalitarian 2014, plotting a backdoor coup was out of
the question. So the entire Congress Lok Sabha contingent from Uttar
Pradesh—basically the mother-son duo—admitted to their party’s ignominious
defeat but refused to utter the dreaded chaiwala’s name in their perfunctory
congratulation to the “new government”.

The erstwhile first family set the tone. By the late
afternoon, as the enormity of the change effected by the hoi-polloi began to
sink in, the derisiveness began in right earnest. From “you will have to speak
in Gujarati now” and “let’s write the final uncensored article” to “enjoy the
last drink”, snobbish black humour took over. By the evening, huddled groups
were shedding copious tears over what they visualised as the lifeless body of
secularism.

Ok, I may be exaggerating the state of
disorientation at not merely Modi’s victory but the complete decimation of the
Congress. But not entirely. Around midnight, I went to the BBC studios for a
recording of a programme on India’s elections for Newsnight. Over the
long-distance link I heard the lament of artist Sir Anish Kapoor over the
results. He despaired over the fact that India was now going to be led by a
“mass murderer”. “This is not the India I grew up in”, he said.

He’s damn right. This was not the entitled world of
the Doon School alumnus. Somewhere along the way democracy has finally kicked
in. The age of deference is well and truly over. And it has been replaced by an
India bursting with raw energy, demanding the standards of life Sir Anish takes
for granted and proclaiming ‘dil mange more’.

India has been changing with the same intensity as
the flag-waving T20 game. Economists have often invoked the potential of
India’s demographic dividend but they have always shied away from addressing
its socio-political ramifications. Modi is no trained sociologist but he
understood what Young India meant far better than the dynasts who dominate the
top echelons of the Congress hierarchy. To the entitled world he appeared
brash, crude and outlandish and hardly prime ministerial. To the youngsters in
the dusty small towns bursting with aimless energy, he was an icon who spoke
their language and articulated their anger. On Friday, he did what the punditry
thought was unimaginable: he encashed the demographic dividend politically.

About Me

The Right is an endangered community in India's English-language media. I happen to be one of the few to have retained a precarious toehold in the mainstream media. I intend this blog as a sounding board of ideas and concerns.
You can read the details of my education, professional experience and political inclinations on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swapan_Dasgupta).
RIGHT ANGLE is an archive of my published articles. USUAL SUSPECTS is my blog.